In the mean time, ever since the troubles began, she always bent
a knee whenever she passed the portrait. She had never seen her King,
yet she felt as if she saw him daily, visible in the living flesh, so
keenly did her loyalty seem to quicken color and canvas. Brilliana
was not the only soul in England whose loyalty gave the King a kind
of godhead, but if she had many peers she had none, nor could have,
who overpassed her.

On the morning of the third day of Evander's stay at Harby, Halfman
sat on the edge of the table in the garden-room and stared through
the open doorway into the green beyond. He was alone, and he had
flung off the stoic robe and was very frankly an angry man and very
frankly a dangerous man. What he saw in the garden maddened him; his
eyes glittered like a cat's that stalks its prey. He had no room in
his thoughts for the cottage of his earlier dreams, with its pleasant
garden and its lazy hours over ale and tobacco. He thought only of a
woman quite beyond his reach, and his heart lusted for the lawless
days when your lucky buccaneer might take his pick of a score of
women by right of fire and sword and tame his choice as he pleased.

To this mood fortune sent interruption in the person of Sir Blaise
Mickleton. Sir Blaise had opened the door expecting to find in the
room Brilliana, whom he had come with a purpose to visit, and instead
of Brilliana he found this queer soldier swinging his legs from the
table and scowling truculently. From what Sir Blaise had already seen
of Halfman he found him very little to his mind, but he reflected
that he had come on a mission, that Brilliana was nowhere in sight,
and that Halfman, who had served her during the siege, might very
well direct him where he should find her.

As Halfman took no notice whatever of him, Sir Blaise deemed it
advisable, in the interests of his mission, to attract his attention.
So he gave a politic cough and followed it with a "Give you
good-morrow" of such sufficient loudness that Halfman could not
choose but hear it. He did not change his attitude, however, or turn
his face from the window, as he answered, in a sullen voice,

"I should need a good-morrow to mend a bad day."

Sir Blaise had not the wit to let a sleeping dog lie, but must needs
prod it to see if it could bark. So he very foolishly said what were
indeed obvious even to a greater fool than he.

"You seem in the sullens."

The sleeping dog could bark. Halfman turne